Postcolonialism, Post–National Socialism, German Reunification, and the Rise of the Far Right

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that postcolonialism, post-Nazism, and German reunification are three important factors in the making of Germany’s self-imagination that explain the relevance and rise of Islamophobia in Germany today. The belated arrival of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a successful right-wing populist party with an anti-Muslim agenda, does not indicate a belated arrival of Islamophobia. Rather, the AfD was able to mobilize a preexisting narrative about Muslims contained in the centrist parties, first and foremost the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, as well as an existing Islamophobic state praxis in the wake of 9/11 that goes even back to colonial times. The chapter shows that with rising violence committed by underground right-wing groups, state authorities have realized that the growing Islamophobia has increasingly become a threat to the state itself.